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We get another of those talks with Itsuki, and as usual he just serves to annoy the crap out of Kyon. We also realize the amount of pressure Itsuki is really feeling and that despite his shadiness, he really does care about everyone (especaially Kyon? :O)

Koizumi is freakin' spinning plates the entire arc.

There's the basic school stuff to worry about (just plain attending, not sleeping during class because that wouldn't fit his character, keeping up with homework, being friendly with his classmates), memorizing lines and rehearsing for his class's play (yeah, it's philosophical bullshit, but he has to get it right the same time, every time, not string it together as he goes along, plus he ends up with more than he bargained for when his role changes from "small side character" to "main character front and center"), getting dragged around by Haruhi day in, day out, for filming her movie (along with any "acting" required, which isn't much, but also is more than he originally thought he'd have, which is partially his own fault and partially due to Haruhi's enthusiasm), dealing with whatever day-to-day things he has to do for his "part time job" (ie: probably standard reports on Haruhi's well-being, what if anything occurred that day, so on and so forth), and oh, BY THE WAY, all the extra stuff once Haruhi's powers start manifesting (here, have a contact lens that was used as a conduit for lasers... oh, and fence-slicing monofilaments too, and those doves, and oh good grief, there's nothing to be done about the cherry blossoms, and at least she's not creating closed spaces, because that would mean the end of Koizumi sleeping at night, if he still does anyway), explaining to Kyon everything that's going on and trying to both hold him back (things would probably get worse on the Organization's side, not that Kyon ever bothers to care because it's not "his" problem) and get him to help (though Kyon is hard-headed and doesn't want to listen to a word Koizumi says), and

Spoiler for Novel volume 8:

convincing an initially unwilling participant to take up the mantle of Student Council President, organizing his campaigns, and setting him up to win the elections post-school festival (because he's already planning that far in advance for Haruhi's boredom).

And through it all? He has to smile and be nice and courteous to everyone, the perfect example of a model student and a worthy second-in-command for Haruhi. The Organization must employ an awesome staff of counselors (although who knows when he would actually have time to see them), because otherwise it seems like the stress of keeping all of those plates in motion at once would probably break the poor esper boy in half eventually.

If he wants to take a little comfort in thinking of himself as a defender of the world, maybe that's okay (even if it annoys Kyon, because really, what doesn't?).

So next episode is the last episode for the '09 season? Considering the gap between seasons, does that mean the next one will come out in 2012? If so, I honestly wish I was as patient as Nagato. Or at the very least, be frozen for the next three years.

Judge Haruhi based on human standard is like judging God by human standard

Since Haruhi is unaware of her reality-warper powers, she is for all intents and purposes psychologically a normal human being. Everything that she consciously does, she should be held accountable for, as if she were a normal human being.

Furthermore, as evidenced later in the series by Day of Sagittarius, Kyon seems to attempt not to treat Haruhi as 'God' or 'The End of the World as We Know It', but as a normal girl with issues. To a degree, he 'knows' that Haruhi is WorldEater, and he tries to avoid giving a damn. This could be seen as selfish, but personally I think it's part of his role in the SOS brigade - everybody else treats Haruhi with kid gloves, so it's Kyon (generally) that has to be 'reality'.

Kyon attempting to 'hit' Haruhi is in my view the extreme extension of this.

Also I have no idea where you were going with the Stanford Prison Experiment. It doesn't seem relevent in any way.

/EDIT Next episode is last of the Sighs arc. If we're going Chronologically I think we have perhaps one or two mid-story one-shots to do?

[LIST]First is Kyon's action of using punch against Haruhi. Seriously i do not understand how can people tolerate that action. Intend to punch a girl for whatever reason is unacceptable. Even when it's not true, surely "mistreat your friend/crush" is not one of them.....

I can much less understand how people can tolerate someone abusing others.
A punch is much less hurtful than what Haruhi does to others. And the whole "it's a girl" thing is really grating. So what ? Wasn't gender-based discrimination supposed to be something of the past ?

A punch is serious matter, yes. Abuse is much more serious. She definitely deserve this.

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However...... describe Haruhi as sociopathy? Give me a break...Given the power Haruhi had both at the subconscious level (which can change anything oppose her way) and consciously (study, athletics, art and all other activity), and how she got through middle school without knowing (or being told) about the wrongness of sexual abuse, blackmail, mistreat....etc...... It's amazing that Haruhi can still have such a strong righteous to not end up as gang leaders, manipulate drug dealers and sell high-school girls to prostitution.... Hasn't "Stanford prison experiment" clearly showed that ?

She does things she find fun. And she finds fun in the weird, the imaginary and the dreams. She does not find selling drugs or prostitution to be fun - she probably look down on it with an eye full of scorn.
You can bet that if she found crime fun, half of Japan would be in civil war

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Judge Haruhi based on human standard is like judging God by human standard

Haruhi has the mind of a human, not God. She merely have the powers of a god. That's the point of the story, a conscious God would not bother to make an amateurish movie.

LOL, Akka. I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from breaking into laughter after reading your comments. It's 5:30 am here, people are still sleeping! >:P

Anyways, I think I'm one of the few who wasn't really affected by the almost pwnage of Haruhi by Kyon. It showed Haruhi that even the person you trust the most will react when what you do is pushing it too far.

I think Kyon wouldn't have hit Haruhi even if Koizumi hadn't stopped him. We can see that he is at least as surprised of his raising hand as Haruhi. Besides, there is a gap between "intending to do" and "doing", it's like between "holding a gun" and "pulling the trigger", a very huge gap...

If I were to describe the second of season of Haruhi, I'd pretty much describe it as mildly amusing, but ultimately shallow and pointless. It's epitomized by Endless Eight, which could get a reaction out of people, but what really was the point? While Haruhi is a series of great creativity, I feel that it ultimately lacked impact in that I could be entertained while watching it, but can't really remember these feelings afterwards, making it hard to describe what makes this series so great.

The principle strength of Haruhi is three-fold...

1) It has what I call a "big idea" behind it. Not all animes or shows have that. The idea of a brilliant, charismatic, domineering, eccentric, but emotionally immature teenage girl unwittingly wielding God-like power is, in and of itself, one incredible starting point. Now, this girl who unknowingly wields this power, in one of the grandest moments of irony ever, hates that which is common place, dull, or ordinary, and hence seeks out what she considers to be the most bizarre and exceptional (should it exist). Haruhi herself is what's bizarre and exceptional, yet that is precisely what she is searching for anyway.

You then have the mysterious transfer student who talks in philosophy and riddles, and is seemingly ever unflappable but yet hides behind a carefully cultivated image. And you have the alien-human interface who can take the philosophy and distill it into concrete, hard science technical jargon like Star Trek technobabble, only probably a bit closer to how science really works in the real world... aside from that, though, she's eerily silent and deadly. And you have the buxom time traveler from the future who's favorite word is "classified".

Sherlock Holmes, let alone Kyon, would find this trio vexing.

Then you take the master of snarkery; the story's touchpoint for a real life person, and insert him into it as the one totally 'normal' guy who has to work with all of the above, while conveying to you the reader/watcher what goes through his head as he does so.

It really is quite the story concept.

2) Exceptionally fascinating and dynamic characters. This I explained above.

3) In the anime's case, outstanding artwork and animation.

The problem comes when you're actually telling the story, though. You have to fuse the mundane (school life) with the unreal (the nature of the characters), and make it stick. That's the tricky part, and Haruhi is a bit hit-and-miss there.

Welding slice of life school-based harem-esque otaku-focused comedy with serious sci-fi action adventure mystery drama is not an easy thing to do. When Haruhi pulls it off, you get the best of both worlds, and it's just fantastic. When Haruhi doesn't pull it off, you're either left with just one or the other, or you get something a bit unstable and wobbly and hard to buy into.

For me, a good example of Haruhi pulling it off is actually the end to Endless Eight. Yes, the solution to the time loop issue is very mundane as Haruhi just wants the Brigade to do something together on the last day of summer vacation... but while the solution is mundane the problem is quite severe and unreal. And this is where imagery, symbolism, high drama facial expressions, powerful background music, and the like, come in to play. By showing all of those "far out!" visuals and audios in the lead-up to Kyon finally putting forward the solution to Endless Eight, the sci-fi drama aspect of the show is maintained, and the fusion between that and the slice of life aspect is beautiful and complete.

But sometimes it just doesn't work. Sometimes you just can't suspend disbelief and hold that, yes, something this mundane could really bring the universe crashing down.

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Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Yea I know, I'm just writing about the episode But I just didn't really think much of the end; just didn't feel like the drama that was there for the entire episode was present at the end.

Really, the big moment of Sighs is the Haruhi/Kyon verbal show down here. Yes, there's still more entertaining stuff to come, but that show down is the high point of Novel 2, imo. Novel 2 doesn't have a true climax. It has an ending, but not really a climax, per se.

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Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Meh, just because I don't like something doesn't always mean I don't get it. Besides, that can be used to justify practically anything because there's no way to tell what their intentions are. I simply do not want to consider what level of thinking Kyoani's on and I don't really want to do that just to enjoy a show. The only thing I do know is that they are doing what they are always doing, trying to put something entertaining and thoughtful out there even if I don't always agree.

Like yourself, I get the KyoAni gimmickry, but I'm not very interested in it. I'm certainly not interested in it if it comes at the expense of basic entertainment value. If the gimmickry can be done with out hurting the anime/franchise, then so be it; but it's not something worth wasting episodes on or putting the show on hiatus for three years for.

Since Haruhi is unaware of her reality-warper powers, she is for all intents and purposes psychologically a normal human being. Everything that she consciously does, she should be held accountable for, as if she were a normal human being.

Furthermore, as evidenced later in the series by Day of Sagittarius, Kyon seems to attempt not to treat Haruhi as 'God' or 'The End of the World as We Know It', but as a normal girl with issues. To a degree, he 'knows' that Haruhi is WorldEater, and he tries to avoid giving a damn. This could be seen as selfish, but personally I think it's part of his role in the SOS brigade - everybody else treats Haruhi with kid gloves, so it's Kyon (generally) that has to be 'reality'.

Kyon attempting to 'hit' Haruhi is in my view the extreme extension of this.

Also I have no idea where you were going with the Stanford Prison Experiment. It doesn't seem relevent in any way.

/EDIT Next episode is last of the Sighs arc. If we're going Chronologically I think we have perhaps one or two mid-story one-shots to do?

First giving the norm rule our definition of "normal" (or at least in this case). How can you identify that entity who can get everything she want for all her life as "all intents and purposes psychologically a normal human being"?
The closest thing she has to us is her body structure. But she lives in a different class, different world.... in much higher level than those "rich spoiled kid" or "Greek God".

Second, ensure what you believe is "reality" even when that action have a huge chance rob bystanders' precious is clearly the worst form of selfish. He is no better than Haruhi in this situation, (even when it's understandable) except Haruhi is not human and she unconsciously do it.

I mentioned Stanford Prison Experiment just to say: the biggest force preventing us to cause chaos to this world is our righteous and our inability to carry it out(or lack of power you may say).

I think Kyon wouldn't have hit Haruhi even if Koizumi hadn't stopped him. We can see that he is at least as surprised of his raising hand as Haruhi. Besides, there is a gap between "intending to do" and "doing", it's like between "holding a gun" and "pulling the trigger", a very huge gap...

Kyon "surprised" means that he's acting without even consciously thinking about it, which pretty much prove that YES, he would have hit Haruhi - if only because he wouldn't even have realized he was doing so before the hit lands.

Since Haruhi is unaware of her reality-warper powers, she is for all intents and purposes psychologically a normal human being. Everything that she consciously does, she should be held accountable for, as if she were a normal human being.

Furthermore, as evidenced later in the series by Day of Sagittarius, Kyon seems to attempt not to treat Haruhi as 'God' or 'The End of the World as We Know It', but as a normal girl with issues. To a degree, he 'knows' that Haruhi is WorldEater, and he tries to avoid giving a damn. This could be seen as selfish, but personally I think it's part of his role in the SOS brigade - everybody else treats Haruhi with kid gloves, so it's Kyon (generally) that has to be 'reality'.

Kyon attempting to 'hit' Haruhi is in my view the extreme extension of this.

I totally agree, Jintor. Since the rest of the Brigade is treating Haruhi simply as a WorldEater that needs to be constantly placated, Kyon is choosing to treat her as an actual human being.

Kyon is absolutely essential here. With out him, Haruhi would be kept amused, but she would never grow as a person; because the other three aren't treating her as a person.

Kyon "surprised" means that he's acting without even consciously thinking about it, which pretty much prove that YES, he would have hit Haruhi - if only because he wouldn't even have realized he was doing so before the hit lands.

We'll never know But it still means that he's not the kind of guy who would hit a girl.

By the way, the hand we see in Haruhi's eye is a left hand, Bad Kyoani ^^

I can much less understand how people can tolerate someone abusing others.
A punch is much less hurtful than what Haruhi does to others. And the whole "it's a girl" thing is really grating. So what ? Wasn't gender-based discrimination supposed to be something of the past ?

A punch is serious matter, yes. Abuse is much more serious. She definitely deserve this.

She does things she find fun. And she finds fun in the weird, the imaginary and the dreams. She does not find selling drugs or prostitution to be fun - she probably look down on it with an eye full of scorn.
You can bet that if she found crime fun, half of Japan would be in civil war

Haruhi has the mind of a human, not God. She merely have the powers of a god. That's the point of the story, a conscious God would not bother to make an amateurish movie.

No, "gender-based discrimination" still exist in today society and i doubt it will end sometime soon. Try those feminism movements.
She do not find all the crimes fun even when she has power for them. That's my point

Her mind is of human, but without interventionher God-like power shape her status as a God. We do not judge Gods because of their mind, but their status, isn't it?

I don't think Haruhi's feelings towards Mikuru in this arc are as complex as Triple does, although the end result is the same.

It's obviously fueled by jealousy by I seriously doubt it's as involved as all that. More likely she just sees him giving her special attention and is using the movie as a passive aggressive means for revenge, but she doesn't actually think of it as trying to harm Mikuru, it's just that she can't help herself, along with her not viewing others as being as important as herself.

How to review this episode? As LN readers know, this is the point where Haruhi reaches her moral nadir. The fact that the LNs continue for seven more volumes after this shows that, well, she gets better. Well enough that people are willing to continue to read about Haruhi's world.

And then it got adapted for the anime. Haruhi's Dark Side, in all its ugliness is on stark, unflinching display. Here, we have someone who, not only flirts with The Line, but would cheerfully go screaming over The Line, and over the moral event horizon beyond if not properly restrained.

She pushed Kyon to the very limit of his seemingly unending patience. So much so that Kyon, of all people, lost it. Were it not for Koizumi, he would've pounded Haruhi into next week. And a good lawyer would've gotten him off on self-defense. Trying to deflect her with words didn't work. As we all recall, Kyon was pushed far enough last week to physically man-handle Haruhi. And that didn't work either. Trying to pound some sense into Haruhi was the least-unpleasant option out of a whole plate of really unpleasant options presented to Kyon. And his dialogue makes it clear that he's doing it because he cares about Haruhi, and what could happen to her if he does nothing.

As we saw in this episode, Haruhi got the shock of her short life . . . that what she's doing has finally gotten to the one person whose thoughts and feelings she genuinely cares about. The storm of emotions which flashed across her face was beautifully done, as was her attempt to hide them by lashing out (only after it was clear Koizumi had Angry Kyon safely restrained.) And then everybody reacting to Kyon attempting to pull free, while letting Haruhi feel the full force of his rhetoric, was excellent. Even the normally-unfazable Tsuruya's expression tells us that this is no longer a laughing matter.

Koizumi is also in rare form this week. Here we see a man who seems to be making it clear that he does what he does because he feels its his duty to protect the world from Haruhi's brand of weirdness. His, and Kyon's, dejectedly gazing at the cherry blossoms that Kyon caused by, essentially, caving in to Haruhi, was especially poignant.

I gave this episode a 9 out of 10. Only a nine because, well, I never give 10s.

I couldn't summarize this amazing episode better if I had the brain of Mr. Hawkins. You should get payed to do this. -u-

I don't think Haruhi's feelings towards Mikuru in this arc are as complex as Triple does, although the end result is the same.

It's obviously fueled by jealousy by I seriously doubt it's as involved as all that. More likely she just sees him giving her special attention and is using the movie as a passive aggressive means for revenge, but she doesn't actually think of it as trying to harm Mikuru, it's just that she can't help herself, along with her not viewing others as being as important as herself.

In some ways, that fits better than my more complex idea, yeah. Haruhi definitely strikes me as a potentially
passive-aggressive sort of person. And your idea makes Haruhi less obsessed with Kyon than mine does, but at the same time it serves as a plausible explanation for her awful mistreatment of Mikuru.

I'm still shaking over this episode. I don't think I can convey into words how sucked in I was to this episode. While I was watching it, I kept typing to my friends on MSN about what's happening. To friends who don't know what the hell Haruhi Suzumiya is - more less what anime is. I had to bite my finger so I could prevent myself from yelling "DECK THAT ****ER!". Right about now is my 10th time watching this scene over and over again. Amazing.

9/10 (Simply because 10 being perfect; nothing is perfect. Probably the closest to perfection an anime can get to, though.)

No, "gender-based discrimination" still exist in today society and i doubt it will end sometime soon. Try those feminism movements.

What I meant is that this "a girl must never be hit" is crap. You don't hit people in general, because it's bad to hit people. It has nothing to do with the gender being hit.
If someone deserve to be punched, it's completely regardless to his/her gender.

Arguing "Kyon should not hit Haruhi because violence is bad" is a think I can recognize (I disagree because Haruhi was a bitch and was deserving the hit, but I see the logic and idea).
Arguing "Kyon should not hit Haruhi because she's a girl" is just dumb. Being a girl has nothing to do with the rest.

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She do not find all the crimes fun even when she has power for them. That's my point

Your point were that she's not sociopathic because she isn't into crime. Which has nothing to do with it. She's sociopathic because she doesn't view others as human beings, but as tools for her amusement.
Her not finding crimes fun has nothing to do with this, it only reflect her tastes going more for the "fun/weird/unknown".

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Her mind is of human, but without interventionher God-like power shape her status as a God. We do not judge Gods because of their mind, but their status, isn't it?

Actually, we judge according to the mind and NOT the status. We consider the Gods of Antiquity to be quarreling and childish because of why they did what they did, not because how much they could do because of their power.
I judge someone according to his motivations and how he deals with them, not according to power he wields.

The very concept of "judging" is based on the thinking of the person and not her power, in fact...

What I meant is that this "a girl must never be hit" is crap. You don't hit people in general, because it's bad to hit people. It has nothing to do with the gender being hit.
If someone deserve to be punched, it's completely regardless to his/her gender.

Arguing "Kyon should not hit Haruhi because violence is bad" is a think I can recognize (I disagree because Haruhi was a bitch and was deserving the hit, but I see the logic and idea).
Arguing "Kyon should not hit Haruhi because she's a girl" is just dumb. Being a girl has nothing to do with the rest.

Yeah start to accuse ppl being dumb because they believe something else.....
If you think that you can punch someone regarding their genders, it's up to you. Because i don't, and I knows that we have ppl complaint in GenderBender because the adaptation is much weaker and less dramatic even if Kyonko can carry out that puncht.

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Your point were that she's not sociopathic because she isn't into crime. Which has nothing to do with it. She's sociopathic because she doesn't view others as human beings, but as tools for her amusement.
Her not finding crimes fun has nothing to do with this, it only reflect her tastes going more for the "fun/weird/unknown".

Actually, we judge according to the mind and NOT the status. We consider the Gods of Antiquity to be quarreling and childish because of why they did what they did, not because how much they could do because of their power.
I judge someone according to his motivations and how he deals with them, not according to power he wields.

The very concept of "judging" is based on the thinking of the person and not her power, in fact...

Don't miss my point, because it is: whatever she (or any known living species) did was affected largely by her(or their) surrounding..... And when be judged by standard, she is no where close to sociopathy
Sorry we here judge God by their status cause none of us can work out what their mind is like (with exception of Christian since i'm not one and do not know if the bibble can portray how his mind is like, still i doubt it).

If you think that you can punch someone regarding their genders, it's up to you.

From what you just quoted :

You don't hit people in general, because it's bad to hit people. It has nothing to do with the gender being hit.

Did you even read it before replying ?

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Don't miss my point, because it is: whatever she (or any known living species) did was affected largely by her(or their) surrounding..... And when be judged by standard, she is no where close to sociopathy

Her surroundings has been the same as others, so I don't really follow your point here.

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Sorry we here judge God by their status cause none of us can work out what their mind look like (with exception of Christian since i'm not one and do not know if the bibble can portray how their mind is like).

Except her mind is just like the one of a human girl. It's quite the point of the serie.